University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa graduate student Owen Shieh is presenting a talk at the TEDxHonolulu event, titled: “Untamed skies: Where science meets humanity.”

“Centuries of scientific and technological advancements have allowed us to survive the harshest of conditions, but weather remains an untamed force of nature,” said Shieh, a graduate student in the UH Mānoa department of meteorology.

“For TEDxHonolulu, my ‘idea worth sharing’ is that we can cultivate a stronger community by understanding the nature of hazardous weather events and paying attention to their impacts on humanity,” said Shieh. “We can appreciate the scientific and technological advancements that allow us to better prepare and cope with the challenges posed by weather.”

At UH Mānoa, Shieh is investigating the factors that drive rapid intensification of tropical storms and typhoons in the western North Pacific, with an emphasis on upper-tropospheric influences. The research includes collaboration with U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor, HI.

One of Shieh’s recent research projects has been focused on Typhoon Vicente (2012), the most powerful storm to strike near Hong Kong in recent years.

“I discovered that variations in upper-tropospheric winds may have had important implications to the storm’s rapid intensification,” Shieh said. “A somewhat subtle feature—an ‘inverted’ trough in the upper-troposphere—that passed through the north side of the storm seemed to have caught forecasters off guard.” The enhanced divergence associated with the passage of this trough in the air above the storm is what Shieh believes contributed to the storm’s intensification and destructive force. As Vicente ramped up, its maximum sustained winds increased from 50 knots (58 mph) to 115 knots (132 mph) within 15 hours, far exceeding established thresholds for the ‘rapid intensification’ of a tropical cyclone.

UH Mānoa’s meteorology department is mainly focused on weather and climate of the tropical Pacific and Asia-Pacific regions. In addition to research on global climate variability, much of its research is directly related to improving short-term weather forecasts for the Hawaiian Islands, and includes developing high-resolution experimental forecasts for the entire State of Hawaii and specialized forecasts for the use of astronomers operating the world renowned observatories on Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawai‘i. The National Weather Service’s Honolulu Forecast Office is located on the UH Mānoa campus.

Owen Shieh at a FEMA training workshop

Shieh’s personal fascination with weather and storms began at an early age in Florida, where he frequently experienced the wrath of tropical storms and severe weather. He studied atmospheric science at Cornell University and earned his MS in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma. Shieh moved to Hawaii in 2010 to pursue his PhD.

While he is finishing his doctoral research, Shieh is working full-time as the Weather and Climate Program Coordinator at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC), which is part of UH Mānoa’s College of Social Sciences. At NDPTC, Shieh oversees the development of FEMA-certified hazardous weather training courses that will be deployed across the United States.

Shieh says that his personal vision is to build national resilience to natural hazards by enhancing a “whole community” discourse that combines scientific research, operational forecasting, emergency management training, public policy and public awareness.

Meteorology has been an academic discipline at University of Hawai‘i at Manoa for over 50 years. The department has built an enviable national and international reputation for research and education, offering both undergraduate (B.S.) and graduate (M.S. and Ph.D.) degree programs. Since 1965 the University has been a member of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The meteorology department is part of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

About the College of Social Sciences

The College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is engaged in a broad range of research endeavors that address fundamental questions about human behavior and the workings of local, national and international political, social, economic and cultural institutions. Its vibrant student-centered academic climate supports outstanding scholarship through internships, and active and service learning approaches to teaching that prepare students for the life-long pursuit of knowledge.

]]>http://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/untamed-skies-where-science-meets-humanity-tedxhonolulu-2013/feed/0Award examines volcanic crises in the USA: from precursors to resiliencehttp://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/award-examines-volcanic-crises-in-the-usa-from-precursors-to-resilience/
http://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/award-examines-volcanic-crises-in-the-usa-from-precursors-to-resilience/#commentsFri, 20 Sep 2013 23:31:41 +0000http://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/?p=1052The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) has been awarded one of the first grants in a new large-scale research direction by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant is one of several made this month by NSF seeking to mitigate disasters by creating broad, interdisciplinary, multi-institutional teams of individuals that often have not worked together previously.

Starting this month, Bruce Houghton, the Gordon Macdonald Professor of Volcanology in Geology and Geophysics, and a team of researchers will start work on an innovative project to improve our “working relationship” with potentially dangerous active volcanoes in the United States. He is joined by Peter Mouginis-Mark, the outgoing Director of Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, and Karl Kim, Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. This study will be made with seven other institutions: the U.S. Geological Survey, UC Berkeley, Texas A&M, Duke, Eastern Tennessee State, Marquette and University at Buffalo, led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. This prototype project will begin a new, uniquely large collaboration between researchers within five observatories of the Volcanic Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey and the seven academic institutions. It will also initiate multiple partnerships with State Government, the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, Domestic Preparedness Consortium and FEMA.

Hazard science has become its own discipline in the 21st century, requiring insights and inputs from social and physical sciences, engineering, mathematics and statistics, land-use planning and computer science. Moderate to large volcanic eruptions, like Mount St. Helens in 1980-1986 or Kīlauea from January 1983 onwards are infrequent, but high-consequence, natural hazard events. Amongst large geological hazards, large eruptions are almost unique in being preceded by weeks or months of clearly recognizable precursors, which offer the potential for successful early interventions. The impacts of volcanic eruptions should be, for this reason, amongst the easiest to mitigate of all the great natural hazards. Nevertheless, the costs of volcanic disasters are often out of proportion to the size of the parent eruptions. Volcanic crises carry a host of volcanological, engineering, human, planning, and economic problems, often because of very high levels of uncertainty in all types of data. The uncertainties in how the volcano, the community, and decision-making institutions will behave can turn events into crises and sometimes disasters. By creating an interdisciplinary group of experts in eruption studies, disaster psychology and emergency management, and quantification of uncertainty, the UH team hopes to start changing that.

A dozen faculty members from Indonesian universities have come to the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa this summer to learn about disaster risk management training and how it specifically can be applied to save lives in their country.

Indonesia is one of the most natural-disaster prone countries in the world. In the last decade alone, it has been affected by more than 160 disasters, including over 60 floods, more than 40 earthquakes, approximately a dozen volcanic events and several wildfires.

In response to the growing need for disaster risk management training, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the federal agency that administers aid and U.S. foreign development assistance, awarded a $327,295 grant to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) at the College of Social Sciences at UH Mānoa. The principal investigator is Professor Karl Kim, who also directs the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. The funding from USAID will develop a cadre of academically trained personnel in disaster risk reduction for the region.

Dolores Foley, chair of DURP, stated, “This partnership with USAID and Indonesia will build on the experiences of the university’s graduate Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance program and the work of our FEMA center, the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. The effort will also integrate course work and research from many departments on campus including planning, engineering, environmental and earth sciences, and other relevant fields involved in disaster risk reduction, community building, and design. In addition to theoretical knowledge, practical exercises and case studies, a key component is working directly with communities, conducting workshops and programs, and addressing such topics as detection, early warning systems, evacuation strategies, relief and humanitarian assistance, land use planning, coastal flood risk reduction, hazard resistant structural design, and recovery planning.”

This summer, the first year of the pilot program, 12 faculty members from Indonesian universities are participating in DURP’s Urban and Regional Planning’s Disaster Management Humanitarian Assistance (DMHA) graduate certificate program. Year one participants come from the Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Bandung and Bakrie University.

“We are delighted to work with our Indonesian partners who face similar hazards that we have in Hawaiʻi, such as volcanoes, tsunamis, coastal storms, as well as threats from ground subsidence, sea level rise and challenges from climate change,” said Professor Kim.

In year two, program participants, supported by DURP faculty, will work jointly to integrate the course content and deliver the curriculum in Indonesia. Partnerships with other Indonesian universities and agencies also will be undertaken to disseminate the program materials to a wider audience.

The final year of the program will result in the establishment of an Indonesian Graduate Certificate in Disaster Management, similar to the DMHA offered by UH Mānoa. In addition, the group will identify the resources required to sustain the program and deploy it to other natural-disaster prone areas such as Malaysia.

The College of Social Sciences (CSS) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is engaged in a broad range of research endeavors that address fundamental questions about human behavior and the workings of local, national and international political, social, economic and cultural institutions. Its vibrant student-centered academic climate supports outstanding scholarship through internships, and active and service learning approaches to teaching that prepare students for the life-long pursuit of knowledge.

The Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the College of Social Sciences fosters a multidisciplinary set of intellectual and practical tools to aid in improving the quality of life for present and future generations, both locally and globally, through planning, public policy and social collaboration. In addition to an accredited masters degree in planning, the department also offers the graduate certificate in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.